GARDINER — For some track athletes, racing against the clock is just as important as competing with the person in the next lane.

Treavon Horton, a senior at Gardiner Area High School, is not one of those types.

“He’s a classic racer. He looks more to win than his time split,” Gardiner coach Joe Fitzsimmons said. “It’s nice for him to hit a time split but he’s more interested in beating the competition. That’s something that you can’t teach.

“… He knows you don’t just get results because you’re awesome, you get results from hard work. He hates to lose, he hates to know that someone can be better than him.”

Horton did a little bit of everything for the Tigers this season, his first in indoor track. He competed in the 55-meter dash, 200, 400, 4×200 relay and long jump, and even tried his hand at the high jump for the first time.

He placed ninth and 10th in the 400 and 200, respectively, at the Class B championships on the heels of a strong showing at the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference Class B championships. At KVACs he placed second in the 400, eighth in the 55 dash and ran a leg of the Tigers’ third place 4×200 relay.

For his efforts this season Treavon Horton has been named the 2014-15 Kennebec Journal Indoor Track Athlete of the Year.

While Horton had run outdoor track before, this past season was full of a number of new experiences for the senior in his first year of indoor.

“I had to change up how I was running, because the indoor track and outdoor track was so much different and I feel more confident on the blocks because I used them a lot,” he said. “I had to run the 55 so I had to fix my blocks and I learned that I had to get out of the blocks quicker. You need to have them closer (together) because you need to have two legs pushing off instead of one.”

Horton also took on a larger leadership role with this season’s small team as compared to previous outdoor seasons or in football. It’s something he plans on expanding on as he prepares for the outdoor season.

“In outdoor I’m looking to be a better leader,” Horton said. “I just want to get a lot of people to run and try new things. I just want people to be happy when they run.”

Horton is still undecided on where he wants to go to college, but said he is mulling academic scholarship offers from New England College and Colby-Sawyer.

He also said he plans to run in college, but for now is focused on getting ready for the outdoor season and trying to recruit some more people to come out for the team with him.

Evan Crawley — 621-5640

ecrawley@mainetoday.com

Twitter: @Evan_Crawley